The Opinion Pages  | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dragon's Lady

By MIN ZINJAN. 21, 2016

YANGON, Myanmar — When in November Sai Win Myat Oo, a candidate from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, ran for a seat in the Parliament of Shan State, in southern Myanmar, he was confident in his chances of being re-elected. The people of his constituency had consistently voted for the local Shan party in the past.

Yet he lost to a candidate from the National League for Democracy (N.L.D.), the majority-Bamar party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, which swept the general election last year, winning some 80 percent of contested seats in the national Parliament. Apparently, it was the ethnic Wa people of Shan State, many of whom resettled there from northern parts of country in the late 1990s, who cast the decisive votes.





Rumor has it they had received instructions to vote for the N.L.D. from the United Wa State Army — at 30,000-strong, the most powerful rebel group in the country — which is headquartered on Myanmar’s border with China. Chinese sources I spoke to in academe and the intelligence services denied that Beijing had anything to do with those directives. But one senior Shan politician and three Myanmar military insiders said they thought it was Chinese influence that had swung the Wa votes in Shan State.





Credit
Dominic McKenzie


Why would Beijing, which has long backed Myanmar’s military regime and refused to engage with pro-democracy parties, now support the N.L.D.? One reason is that in recent years it saw the political tide turning in Myanmar. Another is that it has come to think of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi as a consummate pragmatist, and at a time when the Myanmar army, known as the Tatmadaw, was making political and military overtures to the United States and its allies.

But Beijing’s rapprochement with the N.L.D. now threatens the legitimacy of Myanmar’s generals on issues they have long considered to be within their exclusive purview: foreign policy, border affairs, national security, federalism. So while improved relations between China and the incoming N.L.D. government could help quiet unrest in border areas, they could also upset the uneasy balance of power among Myanmar’s elites in Naypyidaw.

China’s relations with Myanmar have ebbed under President Thein Sein, down to lows not seen since the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, when anti-Chinese riots broke out and Beijing began backing Communist rebels in Myanmar. Ties had then slowly improved because both Deng Xiaoping and the military-led socialist government in Myanmar maintained a neutral foreign policy.

After a military junta took power in 1988, relations graduated to the level of strategic partnership. That the West promptly marginalized the junta and slapped it with sanctions helped matters along, and for the next two decades political, economic and military cooperation between China and Myanmar deepened. Myanmar offered China natural resources and strategic access to the Bay of Bengal, among other things. Beijing provided Myanmar with aid, arms and military training, as well as diplomatic cover.

Relations soured again when the Myanmar government started to liberalize in 2010. In 2011, the now-nominally democratic government in Naypyidaw suspended construction on the massive Chinese-funded Myitsone hydropower dam project. This was largely in response to local opposition to environmental damage and abusive Chinese business practices. But Beijing saw the move as another sign that the Myanmar government was trying to move away from its zone of influence. It reviewed its Myanmar policy.

In recent years, the Chinese government has courted opposition groups and critics of the Myanmar government — hosting, sometimes even feting, journalists, civil society leaders and representatives from ethnic groups and political parties, including Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior N.L.D. officials.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, for her part, has adopted positions that are generally accommodating to China’s interests, including some that seem to cut against the N.L.D.’s stated policies, such as the importance of public buy-in in major foreign projects.

To the dismay of some N.L.D. voters, she has said little to challenge the Myitsone project, and has come out in support of a controversial Chinese copper mine, even after the police cracked down on protesters opposing it. She has praised China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, a centerpiece of the foreign policy and development strategy of President Xi Jinping. Although she once pleaded with the international community, “Please use your liberty to promote ours,” she has been noticeably quiet about human rights issues in China, including the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, seems to have been stirring low-level trouble along the border in order to gain leverage and push its interests, both strategic and economic, in Myanmar. Lately, it has increased its patronage of local ethnic armed groups, especially the United Wa State Army and the Kokang army. Senior Myanmar officials allege that the Kokang insurgency, also in the north, flared up again in 2015 thanks to armament, logistical support and troops provided by China.

The Tatmadaw is now in an awkward position: Any improvement of relations between Beijing and Naypyidaw under an N.L.D. government would be a double-edged sword. Myanmar’s generals would surely welcome some respite from ethnic strife in the north, but they hardly want to be seen as outsourcing security issues to an elected civilian government.

Which may explain why the Tatmadaw has recently taken to describing its fight against ethnic rebel groups as an effort to defend the country’s integrity and sovereignty, rather than as a simple counterinsurgency campaign. By casting local civil conflicts in broader geopolitical terms, it hopes to establish that it is indispensable.

Several political and military officials in Myanmar and intelligence officers in Yunnan have told me they expect Beijing and the N.L.D. to strike some kind of arrangement after the N.L.D. forms a new government in a few months. China would press ethnic rebel groups to cooperate with the N.L.D. on a national cease-fire accord, handing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi a victory that has eluded the current government. In exchange, the N.L.D. would yield to important Chinese interests in Myanmar, such as major infrastructure and investment projects.

This leaves the Tatmadaw with few cards to play. It cannot try to undermine Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s legitimacy or win support from the West by stoking anti-Chinese sentiment — at least not without also running the risk of triggering an aggressive response from China in the northeast. (Or else it would have to go all out, and invoke the clauses in the 2008 Constitution that entitle the military to take power in the case of a national emergency.)

However much the prospect of greater cooperation between the new N.L.D. government and China irks them, Myanmar’s generals may nonetheless be willing to accept it — so long as civilian authorities consult them first. So far Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has seemed willing to work with the Tatmadaw; she would do well to continue if she hopes for further rapprochement with the Chinese. Peace between Myanmar’s Lady and its generals runs through Beijing.


Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.


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A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 22, 2016, in The International New York Times. Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Opinion Pages  | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

In Myanmar, a Soft Coup Ahead of an Election

By MIN ZINSEPT. 11, 2015

Campaigning formally started on Tuesday for Myanmar’s first general election since the end of direct military rule, but don’t be fooled by the display of colorful logos and slogans from various political parties: The army is back in force.

Military apparatchiks in the nominally democratic government have refused to amend the Constitution to allow the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to run for the presidency. Last month, Thura Shwe Mann — a rival of President Thein Sein, a high-ranking general in the previous military government — was forcibly removed from his position as chairman of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (U.S.D.P.).

The purge was more than standard internecine strife; it was an internal coup by the president and his traditional backers, mostly among the military. It was also a sign that with an election just weeks away, the army is eager to reassert control over Myanmar’s political process, and remind all contenders for power that it will allow liberalization only so long as reform ushers in what top generals have called a “discipline-flourishing democracy.”

The rivalry between Mr. Thein Sein and Mr. Shwe Mann, also a senior general in the former junta, is long-standing.

Thura Shwe Mann, speaker of the lower house of Parliament
Photo: Khin Maung Win, AP

But lately Mr. Shwe Mann had proved too good at leveraging his position as speaker of the lower house of Parliament to cater to the clientelistic interests of some legislators, offering them higher salaries and pork-barrel spending. He had also been building bridges with the opposition and had dared to challenge the military directly.

Some weeks ago, the army chief wrote a three-page letter to Mr. Shwe Mann detailing his missteps: among other things, supporting Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s call for a high-level political dialogue, and backing a bill proposing to lift the army’s veto authority over constitutional reform. In late July, the army circulated a petition to impeach him.

When last month Mr. Shwe Mann and other U.S.D.P. leaders rejected more than half of the retired senior officers the army had preselected as candidates to put on the party’s ticket for the November election, the generals had had enough. Late at night on Aug. 12, the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is directly controlled by the military, sent some 400 police officers to surround U.S.D.P. headquarters and obtain Mr. Shwe Mann’s demotion.

That show of force smacked of the strong-arm tactics favored by the old junta. Thura Aung Ko, an ally of Mr. Shwe Mann who was also recently sacked from a senior position at the U.S.D.P., told the media that Than Shwe, the general who led Myanmar from 1992 to 2011, probably had played a role in the purge. Party insiders I have spoken to over the past few weeks said the same thing.

U Htay Oo, who now chairs the U.S.D.P. along with Mr. Thein Sein, told me that Mr. Than Shwe regards the party — whose predecessor he founded two decades ago — as his brainchild, and that he had planned for it and the army to jointly run Myanmar for several decades after the country’s ostensible move toward democracy in 2010. Mr. Shwe Mann’s rising influence seems to have forced Mr. Than Shwe’s hand, convincing him that the military needed to step in to save his vision of the U.S.D.P.

Mr. Shwe Mann has remained speaker since being deposed as party leader. (There are rules about how to strip him of that post, and the army apparently is bashful enough not to bypass them.) He has been keeping a low profile. Yet to the dismay of the military and the party’s new leaders, Parliament voted to suspend discussion of a bill proposing his impeachment: Mr. Shwe Mann’s power may have been undercut, but he does not stand alone. Distrust between the army and civilian politicians has continued to grow in the meantime, as the military has resumed pushing for more senior officers to be included on the U.S.D.P.’s ticket.

When the people of Myanmar vote on Nov. 8, they will be electing representatives for 75 percent of the seats in Parliament; under the Constitution the other 25 percent are reserved for the army. All legislators will then elect the president by a simple majority from among three vice presidential candidates: two nominated by each house of Parliament, the third designated by the military.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi cannot be a candidate for the presidency, but her party, the National League for Democracy, is nonetheless expected to do well in the popular vote — and perhaps well enough to have some clout in choosing the next president. Except that, of course, with the military’s one-quarter quota of the seats in Parliament, the system is inherently stacked against the opposition.

To win the presidency, the candidate backed by the N.L.D. and its allies would need to secure a supermajority among the nonmilitary members of Parliament. Yet a candidate from the U.S.D.P. who was endorsed by the army, being assured the votes of military representatives, could become president even if the party lost the popular vote.

Mr. Thein Sein’s putsch against Mr. Shwe Mann put a dent in the legitimacy of the government — which is now redoubling efforts to secure a major cease-fire agreement with ethnic armed groups so it can claim to have ended Myanmar’s long-running civil war. But by sidelining a leading figure of the U.S.D.P. whom Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had called an ally, the president managed to undermine two rivals at once while consolidating his ties with the military. The army, for its part, is once again manipulating Myanmar’s political scene to ensure that it remains in charge, election or not.

Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 12, 2015, in The International New York Times. Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Real Problem With Myanmar

The Opinion Pages  | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

The Real Problem With Myanmar

By MIN ZIN, MAY 15, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar — The next general election, scheduled for late this year, is not shaping up to be the benchmark of democratic consolidation that many Myanmar observers had hoped. The government, which is still largely controlled by senior military officers, has failed to strike a power-sharing agreement with either the mainstream opposition or ethnic armed resistance groups. Not only does this endanger the legitimacy of the election, it also exposes a dangerous leadership vacuum within both the government and the opposition.


In 2011, the junta that had ruled the country for over two decades undertook vast reforms. The 2008 military-drafted Constitution remained, and the new president, Thein Sein, was a high-ranking general. But the new government formally became civilian, and the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to participate in politics again: Her National League for Democracy (N.L.D.) ran in the April 2012 by-elections. Though that helped legitimize the new government, it also gave the opposition a place in Parliament, and it suggested that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would eventually be permitted to run for president.

Today, that tacit understanding looks like it was a form of cooptation. Since the defeat of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (U.S.D.P.) at the 2012 polls — the N.L.D. won 43 of the 44 seats it contested — both the Thein Sein administration and the military have been anxious not to lose any more ground.

Notably, the government has been resisting calls to amend the 2008 Constitution. One controversial clause bars any citizen of Myanmar with a foreign spouse or foreign children, like Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, from running for president. Another set of provisions limits the rights of ethnic minorities. There has been little progress on changing those clauses partly because of various divisions within the establishment: both between military hard-liners and self-styled democratic reformists, and among the reformists.

For a time, the Thein Sein administration seemed to be pushing hard to conclude a nationwide cease-fire accord with armed ethnic groups, which have waged war against the central government for over six decades, demanding equal rights and a federal union. A successful deal would perk up the ruling party ahead of the election. Failing that, the effort itself might earn the government some credit, while deflating the opposition’s calls for extensive reform.

Some major ethnic armed groups and the government agreed on a draft text on March 31, but the deal has yet to be signed. While the United Nationalities Federal Council, an alliance of ethnic groups, has been insisting that all armed groups should be involved, the military has refused to deal with the Kokang, whose insurgents have been fighting it especially hard.

Yet even as the military scuttled the Thein Sein administration’s efforts on the cease-fire accord, its representatives in Parliament urgently endorsed a motion to pass new laws guaranteeing “power-sharing, resource-sharing and tax-sharing” rights for ethnic minority states and self-administered areas. This was a gambit by the generals to win over the ethnic political parties in Parliament, as well as score points for getting something done when the government is stumbling.

The so-called reformists are also divided. The House speaker, Thura Shwe Mann — the third most-powerful general in the junta, who had expected to become president in 2011 — has mobilized Parliament to pressure Thein Sein into holding multiparty talks on constitutional reform; this, in order both to assert himself and make an overture to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. A meeting was held last month — with Thein Sein, Thura Shwe Mann, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the army chief, among others — but no substantive progress was made, only underscoring the various splits within the establishment.

Even if an elite consensus could be struck, it would be exceedingly difficult to modify the Constitution in time for the election, at least if it is to be held in November, as currently planned. Amending the text’s most significant provisions, including those on the eligibility of presidential candidates, requires both over a 75 percent majority in Parliament and a simple majority in a national referendum.

That is a very high bar to pass at any time, but it would be a logistical nightmare to organize a national plebiscite during the monsoon season, when even the main roads in Myanmar’s major cities get flooded. And since the Constitution allots 25 percent of the seats in Parliament to the military, the generals in effect have veto power over any constitutional reform. The army chief has said that the Constitution, which grants the military vast prerogatives, should not be amended so long as it guarantees the country’s stability.

Sources close to the military have told me that they think the Constitution will not be amended before the election, and that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi stands virtually no chance of running for the presidency this time. Yet it is still unclear who else the N.L.D. may field as its presidential candidate: Thanks partly to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s secretive, personality-driven style, there are no designated second-line leaders within the party.

Still, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has a decisive role to play in the election. Even if she does not run for president, the N.L.D. is expected to win a majority in Parliament, meaning that she could become House speaker, a powerful position with control over the legislature’s agenda and procedures. And because of infighting on the establishment side, she may wind up being the election’s kingmaker.

Under Myanmar’s nominally parliamentary system, the president is not directly elected by the people, but through a complicated parliamentary procedure: After the popular vote, incoming members of Parliament elect the president by a simple majority from among three vice-presidential candidates, two of them nominated by each of the houses of Parliament, and the third by military representatives.

Since the ruling U.S.D.P. is unlikely to win a majority in either house, both Thein Sein and Thura Shwe Mann would need the military’s endorsement to become president. But Thein Sein, once the protégé of the former dictator Than Shwe, has been falling out of favor: The generals think he kowtows to the West and is too soft on ethnic armed groups. And they are wary of Thura Shwe Mann, whom they suspect of seeking rapprochement with the opposition.

Some N.L.D. insiders have indeed suggested that Ms. Aung Sang Suu Kyi might endorse Thura Shwe Mann for president over someone from her own party. They say she may be hoping that once in power Thura Shwe Mann would then push through the reforms needed to eventually make her eligible for the presidency — a questionable proposition, and reminiscent of her tacit understanding with Thein Sein, which is the main cause of the current deadlock.

All this uncertainty might seem like good reason to postpone the election: Better that than risk seeing the military refuse to honor the results or a full-on confrontation over reform. But a delay is also an unattractive option for the generals, as it would hurt their standing, especially internationally.

This quandary only goes to show that it isn’t the next election that should be considered a measure of Myanmar’s progress toward democratization. Rather, the real test is whether the country’s political elites can finally come to a viable power-sharing agreement. Short of such a deal, leadership vacuums on all sides will threaten the country’s stability even if the election takes place.

Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.

Can Burma's Civil Society Find Its Voice Again?

Can Burma's Civil Society Find Its Voice Again?

BY MIN ZIN NOVEMBER 26, 2014

The Burmese military is staging a comeback. Since the government launched its tentative liberalization process four years ago, the armed forces, the notorious Tatmadaw, have taken a backseat. Though it has members in key roles in all government institutions, it has refrained from fully exercising its coercive and all-encompassing constitutional prerogatives. But now the generals are signaling that they're no longer willing to keep a low profile, and instead hope to exercise the full extent of their power in the country's ethnic regions and in its parliament, in which 25 percent of the seats are reserved for military representatives. The army's Nov. 19 attack on a training facility of the Kachin ethnic rebel group -- which killed 23 cadets -- is a clear case in point. (In the photo above, an activist lights candles at a memorial to the attack's victims on Nov. 24.) At a moment when many Burmese are expressing growing dissatisfaction about the undemocratic nature of the military-imposed constitution, the generals are determined to show that they won't brook any further challenges to their authority. If things continue as they are, it's only a matter of time until the Tatmadaw decides to suppress public protests. The question thus becomes whether Burmese civil society is capable of pushing back.

Unfortunately, Burmese civil society is in limbo. The country's diverse constellation of student unions, human rights organizations, and other citizen-led groups were once known for their resilience in the face of oppression and for their creative ability to connect with each other, with their fellows in exile, and with the international community. These groups rallied behind democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her drive for national reconciliation. Her stunning return to active political life in 2012 with a sweeping electoral victory was possible in part due to the support she received from the grassroots. And earlier this year, Aung San Suu Kyi called on civil society groups to rally behind her during her constitutional reform campaign -- which eventually lost steam with its ambiguous endgame, weak credibility, and the changing domestic and international context.

Since the Lady's political return, the groups that once rallied behind her have found themselves marginalized and unable to play a meaningful role in the country's ongoing political transition, which has assumed a marked top-down nature. Burmese civil society appears to have lost its voice.

There are three cases that clearly demonstrate this demobilization. The first was in November 2012, when Aung San Suu Kyi chaired a parliamentary inquiry into police violence against a protesters' camp outside a mining project in northwestern Burma. She failed to hold any officials accountable for that bloody crackdown. Instead, she allowed the project to continue, triggering intense protests from locals and victims. She has refused to criticize the government's renewal of the war in the Kachin region in 2011, which has led to massive human rights abuses, including the rape of displaced Kachin women. The Lady's silence on this matter has alienated her Kachin supporters. Perhaps best known to the international community is Aung San Suu Kyi's silence about rampant anti-Muslim violence which first took place in the west and has since spread throughout the country. 

In all of these cases, Burma's civil society groups looked to the Lady -- their one-time icon and hero -- for ideological, political, and strategic guidance. Unfortunately, she failed them. Perhaps naïvely, she put her trust in the ruling elites and failed to sustain her grassroots bases either at home or abroad. As a result, the partial integration of the opposition into mainstream politics has remained largely symbolic. Civil society groups work hard and make headway on their own individual projects, but few feel that they have been able to make a difference in the country's overall direction.

It wasn't always this way. Burma's civil society organizations were once known for their tenacity and effectiveness. After the military launched a massive crackdown on the democracy movement in 1988, large numbers of these groups were forced into clandestine politics. With basic rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly severely curtailed, they continued to operate underground. They were often able to combine their covert activity with whatever mainstream political participation was allowed. This led to some impressive results. 

A 2007 protest led by Buddhist monks soon attracted youth groups and many other formerly clandestine organizations, soon evolving into a full-scale uprising known as the "Saffron Revolution." Though suffering a harsh government crackdown, these groups did not wither away. When the devastating Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in 2008, costing over 130,000 lives in the delta region, civic groups made an indispensable comeback to deliver humanitarian support to disaster victims. New volunteer groups proliferated. It was civil society that made up for the military state's criminal negligence toward its own citizens in the aftermath of the cyclone. Despite harassment and repression, civil society proved its resilience and effectiveness in assisting the survivors. 

Moreover, civil society groups joined together to protest against the construction of the Myitsone Dam, a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment that would dam the Irrawaddy River at eight locations with grave environmental and cultural consequences. The new government's partial concession in September 2011, when it agreed to suspend construction of the dam, illustrated the strength of Burmese civil society.

Ironically, then, Burmese civil society -- sidelined and demoralized during a relatively open period -- was once capable of great things, even during the harshest periods of military rule. Will it find its voice in the new Burma?

It's possible that the recent resurgence of the armed forces will prompt civil society groups to regain their strategic focus and their willingness to coordinate their actions. If the military decides once again to project its power on the streets by intimidating or attacking protestors, that might force activists to reconsolidate their defensive capabilities and reclaim ownership of Burma's regime-driven political transition. If not, civil society can expect to remain on the sidelines for years to come.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.

Return of the Myanmar Military?

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Return of the Myanmar Military?

By MIN ZIN 
NOV 17, 2014

YANGON, Myanmar — During his visit to Myanmar last week, President Obama sounded a word of caution, saying the process of reform was “by no means complete or irreversible.” His tone was decidedly less enthusiastic than during his previous visit, in 2012. Back then, the recent inauguration of the pseudo-civilian government of President Thein Sein seemed to signal the advent of liberalization after almost half a century of military rule. Many political dissidents were then released from jail or house arrest, notably the democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

But now progress has stalled on almost all major issues: power sharing with the opposition, peace talks with armed ethnic groups, Buddhist-Muslim relations, minority rights, media freedom. Progress has stalled because the military is tightening its grip once again.

The Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are called, has grown increasingly assertive in recent months, even as the country prepares for a historic general election next year, the first since the military junta’s formal dissolution in 2011. Not only is the Tatmadaw increasingly exercising the expansive prerogatives it gave itself in the 2008 Constitution; it is trying to extend its powers further.

                                               Jacob Stead

The recent killing of the freelance journalist Par Gyi, a former bodyguard of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, is just one glaring example. Mr. Par Gyi was allegedly shot while in army custody in early October. At first the army tried to hide his death, only to claim three weeks after it occurred that he was shot by soldiers while trying to escape. After the authorities exhumed Mr. Par Gyi, images of his mutilated body circulated on Facebook and outraged the general public, confirming suspicions that he had been tortured.

But the episode seems only to have revived the military’s siege mentality. The army is unlikely to allow any civilian court to look into the case; it will rather prosecute its own commanders if necessary to protect the institution’s credibility overall. And under the 2008 Constitution, “in the adjudication of military justice,” the decision of the commander in chief is final.

Submitting to civilian oversight would be risky. A recent report by Harvard Law School names three senior generals in connection with crimes against humanity and war crimes suffered by ethnic Karen between 2005 and 2008. Transitional justice is a threat to the army’s unity, and in the past would have been just the kind of threat to justify a coup. The issue today isn’t so much whether the military would consider a takeover — times have changed — but rather how far it will go to protect its narrow interests in the face of public opposition, just a year before a general election.

Another gauge of its resolve is constitutional reform. Throughout 2013, a special committee appointed by Parliament solicited views from the public about whether, and how, the 2008 Constitution might be improved. In a separate petition, the main opposition party gathered five million signatures from people asking for a relaxation of the amendment clause. Modifying major provisions of the Constitution, including the amendment clause itself, requires a 75 percent majority in Parliament — which gives the military veto power since by law it holds 25 percent of parliamentary seats — and then a majority of votes in a national referendum. This exceedingly high threshold blocks any fundamental constitutional reform, including of the provision prohibiting Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s candidacy for the presidency and of clauses governing taxation and the appointment of provincial authorities in ethnic areas.

Yet during debates in Parliament last week, the military’s representatives declared that the amendment clause should be maintained. The Tatmadaw may never have considered allowing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to run for president. For a time, however, it did seem to want to increase the autonomy of ethnic regions, if only to curry support among ethnic political parties and armed groups. Its recent inflexibility is a notable change, and a sign of its growing insecurity. 

This is especially ominous because the military’s hardening risks causing friction with the Thein Sein government: Last December, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, an offshoot of the old military junta, had granted its conditional approval for amending the Constitution’s amendment clause.

In the initial phase of liberalization, the military tended to follow Mr. Thein Sein’s reform initiatives. The generals rarely defied the political agenda of the president, himself a career army bureaucrat, except to defend their economic and tactical interests. But according to several senior aides to Mr. Thein Sein, relations between the president and the commander in chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, are increasingly out of sync. Several sources close to both men told me that General Min Aung Hlaing’s tougher tactics of late were reminiscent of the style of Senior Gen. Than Shwe, Myanmar’s military leader from 1992 to 2011, suggesting that General Than Shwe may still be pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Lately, the military leadership has called for expanding the role of the National Defense and Security Council, a military-dominated 11-member body that holds wide-ranging powers, including the right to take over from the civilian government in a state of emergency. During the parliamentary debates last week, military representatives argued that the N.D.S.C. should be able to dissolve Parliament if one-third of the seats become vacant.

Were this proposal an isolated case, it might simply be a maneuver by the military to increase its leverage. But like one of several such moves recently, it is evidence that the generals are hardening their stance with little regard for international opinion, the will of the voters, or even relations with Mr. Thein Sein. After a brief moment of promise, the new Myanmar is increasingly starting to look like the old.

Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 18, 2014, in The International New York Times. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Myitsone Dam: A Cause for Unity or an Uprising in the Making?

By MIN ZIN Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Whenever two existential threats—economic deprivation and violation of dignity—merge and hurt society, the people of Burma revolt. Thus the construction of a massive hydro-power dam at Myitsone, where the Maykha and Malikha rivers meet to become the mighty Irrawaddy, mainly to serve China’s energy needs, has spawned a “Save the Irrawaddy” campaign that has become an unprecedented rallying ground for the people of Burma to take contentious action against a new regime.

Within the “civilian” government of President Thein Sein, however, this issue has become a source of division. Ministers and parliamentary leaders have taken conflicting views over how to resolve this crisis. That some moderate members of the regime have publicly called for an overall review of the project in transparent manner is a welcome sign. Unless the regime manages an acceptable resolution to this issue, however, the “Save the Irrawaddy” discourse could gradually grow into something else: an “Irrawaddy Uprising”. This issue is so close to home for the people of Burma because it involves not only national development but also national dignity. More importantly, the public’s rising outrage will put three key policy players—Thein Sein, opposition activist Aung San Suu Kyi and the Chinese government—in a serious political dilemma.

Let’s start with the facts. The project to fragment the Irrawaddy by building dams began in December 2006, and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between China and Burma on the development, operation and delivery of electricity from the hydro-power project was signed in 2009. Along with Burma’s privately owned, military-backed Asia World Company, China’s state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) will dam the Irrawaddy at eight locations. The largest of these dams, and the one causing the greatest outcry, is being built just below the confluence. The reservoir area is 766 km, which is bigger than Singapore. Moreover, the Myitsone dam is located less than 100 km from a major tectonic fault line. Experts warn that an earthquake could cause the collapse of the dam, with devastating consequences.

Local Kachin communities have been calling on the Burmese and Chinese governments to stop the dam project since 2007. A few Burman civil society members and writers have also called attention to the deteriorating condition of the Irrawaddy River. However, the mainstream media and the general public remained largely silent on these issues until a confidential Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was leaked to social activists and the media in June-July of 2011.

The EIA report, which was fully funded by CPI and conducted by a team of Burmese and Chinese scientists, was produced in October 2009 but never made public. The report clearly recommends that the Myitsone dam project be abandoned.

“If Myanmar [Burmese] and Chinese sides were really concerned about environmental issues and aimed at sustainable development of the country, there is no need for such a big dam to be constructed at the confluence of the Ayeyawady [Irrawaddy] River. Instead, two smaller dams could be built above Myitsone to produce nearly the same amount of electricity,” the reports states. It also notes the lack of a Social Impact Assessment and strongly recommends that one be carried out by competent social scientists before approval of the project.

Aside from the environmental, economic and social damage the construction of the dams is causing, another thorny issue is the fact that the chief beneficiary of the project, both in terms of power consumption and profits from the sale of the generated energy, is China, which will buy up to 90 percent of the electricity and keep some 70 percent of the profits.

When researchers, campaigners and independent media organizations started ringing alarm bells by citing the Chinese-funded EIA report, the issue captured the national imagination and prompted a sense of public urgency to protect the river. Calls to save the Irrawaddy are now expressed through every conceivable medium: articles, cartoons, songs, petitions, public statements, religious sermons and interviews with experts.

In August, the government finally got around to defending the construction of the Myitsone dam in state-run newspapers, claiming that the project would have no negative impact on the flow of the Irrawaddy River or on the lives and livelihoods of local people. However, the private weeklies—most notably the popular Eleven Media journal—and foreign broadcasters pushed back, calling for more transparency regarding the EIA, details of the MoU and dam construction-related information.

The growing consensus among Burmese experts, including some senior advisers to the president, and general public was now clear: the project must be stopped—period.

The watershed moment came when Minister of Electric Power (1) Zaw Min, who claimed that “no one in Myanmar knows and possesses more experience than me concerning hydro-power,” told local media on Sept 11: “Regardless of objections from any sources, the construction of the Myitsone Hydropower Project will not be abolished. … We will never rescind it.”

Zaw Min's remarks triggered public outrage. The influential Eleven Media immediately responded by collecting the views of various leading journalists, public intellectuals and even members of the regime’s Parliament. Highly respected veteran journalist Ludu Sein Win defiantly warned that people would take to the streets to defend the Irrawaddy River if civil and non-confrontational means didn't work. The Internet posting of the report drew hundreds of angry comments from readers within days, and social media and various public actions have further invigorated the momentum of the “Save the Irrawaddy” campaign.

If history is any guide, the “Save the Irrawaddy” discourse will gradually grow into the “Irrawaddy Uprising” because the emergence of this issue coincides with worsening poverty among the majority of the general public, caused by a struggling export sector hit by fluctuating currency exchange rates. In the past, whenever the severe economic deprivation of the general public was compounded by unjust events that violated the dignity of the people—for example, in 1987, when the demonetization of the Burmese currency was coupled with police brutality against students, and again in 2007, when fuel prices were hiked by 500 percent fuel price hike and police assaulted Buddhist monks in Pakokku—the people have revolted against incumbent regimes.

Of course, the uprising in itself will not yield a positive policy outcome. The effective societal pressures could force the policymakers (rarely as a unified entity but mostly likely a winning faction of them) to intervene in the situation and accommodate a mediated outcome.
In the meantime, public pressure is growing, presenting a serious challenge to the Thein Sein administration, as well as to its chief domestic interlocutor, Aung San Suu Kyi, and its key international ally, China.

Over the past few months, Thein Sein has captured the imagination of politically active members of Burmese society, both inside the country and abroad, with his various initiatives, including his meeting with Suu Kyi, efforts to convene poverty alleviation workshops, and an invitation to exiles to return home. However, if he fails to mitigate the rising tide of public anger over the Irrawaddy crisis, this could trump any credit he might receive for his otherwise laudable efforts.

However, there are a number of steps that Thein Sein could take to address the Irrawaddy issue, such as getting the Parliament to enact a much-needed environmental law, suspending the dam project to conduct more independent assessments with the assistance of Mekong River Commission, or choosing the EIA-proposed alternative plan of building two small dams north of Myitsone.

Of course, these measures are not without risk for the Thein Sein regime, which is rife with internal rivalries. However, there is reason to believe that they would enjoy support among at least some in the regime. Minister of Industry (2) Soe Thein, for instance, recently called for a review of the project and suggested exploring the option of building two small dams north of Myitsone, as proposed in the EIA report. However, this would likely anger China, the indispensable patron of the regime for international protection and financial assistance, which has already invested heavily in the project.

In fact, this is where Suu Kyi could play a role. As the democracy darling of the West, Suu Kyi could bring what the regime needs from the international community and ease Thein Sein’s disproportionate reliance on Beijing. By cooperating with Suu Kyi, Thein Sein could win international support and thus gain more leverage in dealing with Beijing, which could be persuaded to accept the need for a transitional Burma to balance between political stability and honoring business contracts of previous regimes, at least in the short term.

However, the Lady herself is in a political dilemma: should she lead the public in calling for a halt to the Myitsone project, or simply follow the people's lead? In August, she weighed in with a letter appealing to both the Burmese and Chinese governments to “reassess the scheme and cooperate to find solutions that would prevent undesirable consequences and thus allay the fears of all who are anxious to protect the Irrawaddy.” But since then, she has not followed up with any concrete program. Perhaps she is facing the same dilemma that her aging party leadership encountered during the Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution in 2007: not leading, but just belatedly following after the crowds.

The dilemma for China can be seen at two levels: Yunnan and Beijing. A large part of the public outrage over the Myitsone project is directly related to growing resentment of China’s opportunistic and exploitative foreign policy toward Burma. It is not clear how far Yunnan reports back to Beijing and the latter makes its own effort to gather information about the intensity of such resentment and possible dangerous implications. However, it is ironic that China is not sensitive to the deep-seated feelings of the humiliated people of Burma, despite China herself having suffered untold humiliation at the hands of foreign powers in the early 20th century.

Moreover, growing numbers of people in Burma have come to view the Irrawaddy crisis as a national security issue. If Beijing cares only to nurture patron-client relations with a handful of generals and ex-generals in Naypyidaw to secure its security and economic interests without being sensitive to the deprivation and dignity of the people of Burma, the consequences will be dire for both countries.

However, the good news is that there is a great chance for David to beat Goliath. As I argue elsewhere, although the regime is in control of the country's general political direction, opposition groups hold significant sway over specific issues and arenas in terms of power distribution.

The Irrawaddy issue is a case in point. Opposition groups (not necessarily political ones, but broadly inclusive societal groups) have significant leverage to press for issue-specific change. The Irrawaddy crisis offers the broadest issue-linkages because it can be related to human rights, national security, ethnic conflicts, foreign investment and trade, poverty and sustainable development, environmental issues, and the empowerment of civil society, among many other issues.

Stronger issue-linkages will help broaden societal bases of the movement from diverse backgrounds. It can even draw in military officers and the business community because the issue is framed not in terms of claiming political power from incumbents but in terms of a national cause of rescuing Burma from national humiliation.

This is David’s rule of thumb: to choose to fight strength against weakness, and not strength against strength. If the regime refuses to accommodate the people’s demands, it will be targeted as a Goliath, and the Irrawaddy uprising will ensue. If the regime (or a winning faction of the regime in internal rivalries) takes side with the people to accommodate a mediated outcome, the Irrawaddy crisis will serve as a long-awaited step for restoration of national dignity and unity. It will then be China who ends up playing the role of Goliath. In any case, if the underdogs in Burma play David’s playbook in this specific issue of defending the Irrawaddy, the chance is high that they will be able to strike down Goliath with a slingshot and use their powerful sword to slay the giant.

Min Zin is a Burmese journalist living in exile. The opinions expressed in this guest commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Irrawaddy.